More than two months after moving into the new house, I have finished cataloging all of my paper-based books. I used LibraryThing to catalog them because the iPhone app made it easy to scan barcodes and enter ISBNs. While cataloging the books, I purged again. I did this before the move as well. In this round, I donated 128 books.
The majority of the books I got rid of in this latest purge were Piers Anthony paperbacks. I had been collecting these since I first discovered Anthony in junior high school, and some of them dated back to that time. It was a little difficult letting these go, not so much because of the nostalgia they created, but because of the memories of the hard-earned money I spent to buy them. Hopefully, they will take on a new life for another reader.
I kept a few of the PA paperbacks. I kept a paperback copy of Race Against Time. I remember checking this book out of the Granada Hills branch of the Los Angeles Public Library before I knew who Piers Anthony was. I read it at a fever-pace over the course of a few hot summer days. Eventually, I obtained my own copy, and I kept this one as a reminder that books can surprise you and be a window into all kinds of new discovery.
I also kept a rare paperback copy of Kiai! by Piers Anthony and Roberto Fuentes. I haven’t read this one, but the book happens to be signed by Piers Anthony and I couldn’t give that up. I kept several PA hardcovers, including his INCARNATIONS OF IMMORTALITY series, which I remember really enjoying.
Going through all of my books, I was surprised at how many I found that were signed by the author. Dozens of them. They fall into two broad categories: books that are signed to me personally, and books that I obtained already signed. I have several signed Asimov books that fall into the latter category. I have one Will Durant book in this latter category along with several volumes of Dumas Malone’s Jefferson and His Times that are signed.
There are many more books that are signed to me, including perhaps 10 by Harlan Ellison, half a dozen by Barry N. Malzberg. And there are many books signed by authors who have since become my friends.
I am left with 991 printed books. I have about 400 e-books and nearly 800 audiobooks from Audible that are not part of this catalog. This also does not count all of the magazines I have, including a complete set of SCIENCE FICTION AGE, and a fairly complete set of ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION from 1939-1950.
My next step is to organize them. Right now, they are on the shelves in a completely haphazard fashion. Once, long ago, I had them arranged alphabetically by author, and then chronologically within each author. I am planning on changing that. I’ll organize the fiction books alphabetically by author and then chronologically within each other. The nonfiction I plan on breaking into several categories that are useful to me. These include: biography/memoir, science, history, sports, NASA/space exploration, essays and criticism, and reference books. I may need one or two additional categories, but we’ll see. With the purge complete, the books should all fit neatly on my existing shelves. I’ll post another picture when the reorganization is complete.
Here is an interesting fact: according to LibraryThing, if all of my books were stacked up, they would reach about 550 feet, which is just shy of the height of the Washington Monument.
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